There are over 15million smartphones currently in circulation in Nigeria and with efforts by the OEMs to increase this number by making smartphones even more affordable, this has led to increase in mobile banking and mobile money adoption in Nigeria.

With the introduction of App lock by eTranzact International PLC; a technology that ties mobile financial service apps with mobile phones to help Banks, mobile money operators and other partners reduce fraud and safeguard financial information of customers, the CEO, eTranzact International PLC, Mr. Valentine Obi says the company has focused heavily on building the infrastructural backbone of what is required to take electronic payment industry to new heights.

Speaking at the Information Systems Audit and Control Association Conference in Lagos with the theme: Building the Next Generation Cyber Army, Valentine added that fighting cybercrime and fraud is a collective effort, and proper coordination among the stakeholders is currently lacking to the advantage of the fraudsters, which according to him is why eTranzact has created the Enhanced Strong Authentication system (ESA) which, in addition to the App lock technology, will significantly help reduce cybercrime and fraud in POS, Mobile and web transactions. With ESA, the Mobile phone becomes the token, allowing the user secure multiple bank accounts with one phone.

“ESA will translate to savings of over N120b spent on hard tokens for 40million cards and will result in no foreign exchange loss.  ESA allows the generation of one time password codes and setting dynamic spending limits on ATMs and Cards.

“Fighting cybercrime requires the collaboration of the entire ecosystem from the banks, switching companies, to the regulatory bodies. The current strategy to fight cybercrime in Nigeria is not sufficient; asN127b is lost every year in Nigeria to cybercrime according to the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu”.

Valentine however called for the need for payment industry stakeholders to clearly define the rules of engagement in the event of a fraudulent activity in the industry. “Information technology risks have evolved dramatically in the last few years but the approach that financial institutions use to manage them has not kept apace. Hard tokens cost as much as N3000 and if a customer with 4 accounts needs to get a token, that amounts to N12,000 per customer leaving the customer to either get the tokens or be excluded from electronic transactions altogether. We believe this is the age to deploy other cheaper and safer options that are not dependent on hardware”, he said.